Binge drinking doubles mortality rate

If at your annual check-up you nervously fudge your weekly drinking stats, then you know you need to cut back. But even if you duck 21 units per week with headroom to spare, you could be doubling your risk compared to the guy who has an after-office relaxer every evening while you head to the gym. Feeling less smug?

Saving up your weekly limit for a Friday night session is twice as deadly as averaging them out over seven days, according to new research published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. The study found that in 446 adults, binge drinkers were twice as likely to die over 20 years as their less indulgent counterparts. Time to reconsider that post-five-a-side booze up.

“Bottom line, binge drinking isn’t part of a healthy lifestyle,” says Dr Timothy Naimi, a physician and alcohol researcher at Boston Medical Center. He defines bingeing as “drinking, on a per occasion basis, at levels associated with legal intoxication”. That’s around eight units for a man; just three-and-a-half pints of premium lager.

The risks from binge drinking are twofold. There’s on-the-night, acute dangers like stumbling into a river, alcohol poisoning or booze-induced violence. Then, even if you avoid a drunken punch-up, long-term, chronic problems. “There’s a strong risk for increased heart disease in people who binge drink,” says Naimi. “As well as things like cancer and liver disease.

“If you binge drink, it’s like throwing a dice,” he continues. “With time, and enough episodes, and the right situation one night of getting into a car or an altercation that escalates because of alcohol, it’s a cumulative risk factor.” And though Naimi is suspicious of low-level drinking’s supposed up-sides, even if they are real, “if you binge drink, those benefits are thrown in the trash, and then some.” It’s like taking your statins with a side of butter.

The best way to avoid gambling on your health is to quantify your intake both daily and weekly. “For optimal health, it’s one or two units a day at most for a man.” So that post-work pint is OK. You just need to learn to turn down the next one.

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